10 Ways Microsoft Can Salvage their iPod Killer

Dear Microsoft:

I can't help but noticing that this latest iPod killer situation is unfolding along the same lines as Origami. It's not too late to call the whole thing a ‘market research experiment,’ or to rebrand all your products under a new name to distract attention away from this boondoggle: Active-, Direct-, -.net, -Live!... how about -Kaboom! ?

It must really grind your gears to see your 2006 vaporware initiative entirely fail to divert any attention away from the iPod. What's up with these journalists who are supposed to be publishing FUD? They just complain about everyone these days!

Then, after six months of efforts to backpedal on vaporware promises and put the final marketing touches on some rebranded hardware, what could be worse that finding that any hopes for profits - or even limited losses - on player hardware sales were effectively shot in the face by Apple's price reductions across the iPod line? Bummer!

Of course, if this honeymoon with Toshiba doesn't work out, no doubt your other PlaysForSure wives will be ready to take you back after you slink home in defeat, but what fun is that? Rally the troops and apply these ten simple strategies to salvage the half-assed efforts you’ve already expended.

Win me over as a customer!

1. Start Small by competing against Creative in 2001. That way, you only have to outsmart some poorly designed hardware and awful software, rather than going head to head with the fifth generation of a popular, integrated, and well designed product with a huge installed base. Oh sorry, too late for that. Let me start over:

1. Pick a fashionable color that is not turd brown. How about, say, a desirable color? Do not look in your closet for inspiration, because tech nerd middle managers are not generally known to be snappy dressers.

2. Offer to repurchase my Apple music collection, then buy my video dock, my Nike+ sensor, my iPod camera connector, and then build functional equivalents that simply work effortlessly. Haha, and flying pigs, too. They make the best bacon.

3. Pick a new name that doesn't invoke a childish word for naughty bits, or wide expanses of barren sand. How about something original and catchy, such as: Pod XP 2007 Premier Edition for the human ear.

4. Rename features to reflect what they do, rather than using abstract words that sound more like a struggling dotcom. For example "Now with viral DRM to infect your friends with exploding media!" instead of Pyxis.

5. Design some cool new hardware instead of simply rebranding a Toshiba Gigabeat, which is already a failure in the market. Just because the Xbox doesn't make money doesn't mean you can afford to lose money on an iPod killer. You certainly aren't going to make any money on media downloads as long as Apple is around to keep prices low, and you’ve already ran several failed partners through the shredder with those phony subscription plans that consumers hate.

6. Oh the Humanity! In the era of exploding battery panic, do not intentionally depict your product, is users, and its logo violently bursting into flames.

7. Introduce a line of games that play on the device. After losing untold billions of dollars in Xbox development, surely you have some ashes to scrape together on that front. You did think of that already, right?

8. Stop churning out nerd crap and sell products widely marketable to a broad audience. Nobody outside of Engadgizmodo cares about weird techie features that nobody will ever use. And seriously, no one is looking to spend $300 for a personal FM radio, so focus on user's own music, podcasts and movies. What, no podcasts? Microsoft, try to work with me here.

They're about to put Christmas stuff up at WalMart, so you need to get cranking on this before it turns into the biggest Bob you've ever pulled.

9. Create a product strategy that revolves around creating a great product that respects artists, rather than trying to shove another get-rich-quick licensing scheme down users' throats, simply to lay claim to another industry so you can lock it up in a heavily taxed, draconian prison state.

10. Ditch this whole Apple copycat plan and follow the Microsoft path to success: Find a big dumb company trying to make a half-assed entry into the consumer market, then use their resources to establish your own software as a platform, and just when they realized you've cleaned them out, drop them like a hot potato and run with your success.

Oh wait. That's what Apple just did to you! It looks like you've become the IBM of the mid-80s. Good luck with the whole OS/2, I mean WMA thing, and well, I can’t say you’ll be missed, but the world will be a better place without you around anyway.

Sincerely,

Daniel Eran

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